Pope John Paul II would be 'firmly against' cancel culture: papal expert

Forty years after the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Pope St. John Paul II, a writer who extensively studied his papacy is encouraging the faithful to embrace the late pope’s model of forgiveness and reject “cancel culture,” which he characterized as “the opposite of forgiveness.” 

Thursday marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination attempt against Pope St. John Paul II, which took place just six weeks after the newly elected president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, was shot. In an interview with The Christian Post, Patrick Novecosky, a Catholic public speaker and journalist who wrote the book 100 Ways John Paul II Changed the World, reflected on the legacy of John Paul II as well as the state of the Catholic Church and Western society today.

As Novecosky explained, on May 13, 1981, Pope St. John Paul II “was hit four times, twice in the abdomen, and the [bullets] that struck him in the abdomen were within millimeters of a major artery, so he lost a lot of blood.” Despite the pain he was suffering, John Paul II immediately forgave Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who attempted to kill him.